Case Of Man Accused Of Killing For Love Now Up To The Jurors

A jury in Waukegan began deliberations Tuesday in the murder trial of Ricardo Cuadros-Mendoza, who prosecutors said killed for love.

The deliberations capped a weeklong trial and five-year effort by family members to find justice in the slaying of Tranquilino ``Frank`` Salinas, 35, a Wauconda landscape contractor.

Scores of friends and relatives of Salinas have attended the trial of Mendoza, 27, who married Salinas` widow after the slaying.

Mendoza has maintained his innocence of the June 16, 1984, slaying despite a purported confession in which he said he shot Salinas once in the head and dumped his body in Long Grove.

The jurors received the case early Tuesday afternoon from Lake County Circuit Judge Henry Tonigan and continued their deliberations into the evening. At one point, they sent out several questions to the judge, one of which asked whether the Chicago Cubs won Tuesday`s game.

The state`s case against Mendoza was based primarily on the purported confession that he gave Lake County sheriff`s investigators last Feb. 20, two days after his arrest. It became the principal point of argument in nearly three hours of summations Tuesday by defense and prosecuting attorneys.

James Booras and Henry Lazzaro, assistant state`s attorneys, said Mendoza`s taped statement showed that the defendant knew more details about the murder than investigators did.

``It adds up to a lot of detail that only he would know,`` Lazzaro argued. ``Detail after detail after detail. Is it all the truth? Probably not.``

Kenneth Del Valle, the attorney for Mendoza, said the 56-page statement showed that his client was innocent and that he was forced by investigators to make up the story. ``All this detail shows that this (the statement) is garbage,`` said Del Valle. ``All this great detail doesn`t make sense.``

For example, Del Valle argued that Mendoza could not, as he said in the statement, put a pistol in his sock and start bicycling down the road without losing the gun. Del Valle also said it was unlikely that Mendoza could have bought the gun, as he claimed, during a five-minute chat with a man in a tavern the night before the slaying.

Del Valle maintained that after prolonged questioning for two days, and without adequate sleep or food, Mendoza reached a breaking point and confessed out of fear of being returned to Mexico and put in the hands of Mexican police.

Booras, however, argued that Mendoza had carefully planned the murder and the disposal of Salinas` body in a wooded area of Long Grove, had burned the man`s bloodied clothing, thrown the gun in a lake in Wauconda, and abandoned the victim`s pickup truck in Round Lake Beach. ``No one knew what happened to (Salinas`) shirt until he told you,`` Booras said.

Though the state does not have to prove a motive in a murder case, Lazzaro argued that Mendoza`s love for Salinas` wife, Socorro, provided a clear motive. Mendoza and the widow, who is Mendoza`s first cousin, were later married.

``No, it was not a happy marriage,`` Lazzaro said of the Salinases`

relationship. ``There was a confrontation between this man (Mendoza) and Socorro and Tranquilino and that led to the death of Tranquilino Salinas.``

Salinas` skeletal remains, apparently dismembered by animals, were found March 19, 1985, by a Long Grove homeowner.

Mendoza, a Mexican citizen who had returned to Mexico after the shooting, was initially arrested by immigration agents last Feb. 18 for being in the United States illegally.

But he had been a suspect in the slaying, and had been questioned by Lake County authorities after Salinas` body was found in 1985.